


The Year of the False Spring

by Sera_dy_Relandrant



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Historical, Pre-Canon, Robert's Rebellion, The Knight of the Laughing Tree, The Year of the False Spring, Tourney at Harrenhal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-31
Updated: 2012-04-28
Packaged: 2017-11-02 20:03:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/372855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sera_dy_Relandrant/pseuds/Sera_dy_Relandrant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>281 AL. The story about the Tourney at Harrenhal, the Knight of the Laughing Tree, the duel between Brandon and Littlefinger and the events leading up to the Stark-Tully-Arryn-Baratheon alliance and Robert's Rebellion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rickard: The Glass Gardens

_Roses red and roses white_  
Plucked I for my love's delight.  
She would none of all my posies-  
Bade me gather her blue roses.

_Half the world I wandered through,_   
_Seeking where such flowers grew._   
_Half the world unto my quest_   
_Answered me with laugh and jest._

_Home I came at wintertide,_   
_But my silly love had died_   
_Seeking with her latest breath_   
_Roses from the arms of Death._

**Blue Roses - Rudyard Kipling**

* * *

_"North or south, singers always find a ready welcome, so Bael ate at Lord Stark's own table, and played for the lord in his high seat until half the night was gone. The old songs he played, and new ones he'd made himself, and he played and sang so well that when he was done, the lord offered to let him name his own reward. 'All I ask is a flower,' Bael answered, 'the fairest flower that blooms in the gardens o' Winterfell.'_

_"Now as it happened the winter roses had only then come into bloom, and no flower is so rare nor precious. So the Stark sent to his glass gardens and commanded that the most beautiful o' the winter roses be plucked for the singer's payment. And so it was done. But when morning come, the singer had vanished... and so had Lord Brandon's maiden daughter. Her bed they found empty, but for the pale blue rose that Bael had left on the pillow where her head had lain."_

**A Clash of Kings**

* * *

He found her in the glass gardens. Beyond the walls of glass, it was snowing, the light, soft flurries of early spring. Within, it was as warm as summer.

She was among her flowers, her precious roses - golden as autumn, red as summer, pink-and-white as virgin spring and the blue roses of winter which she loved best of all.

 _Why the blue ones, sweetling?_ he'd once asked her. When she could be coaxed - or, more often, coerced - into a gown, she would always pick yellow. Yellow like the little lemon cakes she pilfered from the kitchens, yellow like the lionflower wreaths Ned would weave for her.

 _Because they're the hardest to grow,_ she'd said, wiping a smear of dirt off her nose and leaving it even dirtier.  _Because they're so delicate._

_So it's the challenge that you love?_

She'd nodded and added,  _And because they're the rarest too. They're not_ that  _pretty but everyone calls them the best because they're the rarest. The best._

She'd always wanted the best. She'd always wanted to be the best. There was much pride in her, much vanity.  _  
_

It had been a way to keep her out of mischief and keep her indoors when she was a child, setting her to tend her own patch of flowers in the glass gardens. For winter had come when she was nine years old, a true northern winter that made him bless the wisdom of his forefathers in building Winterfell over hot springs. The world might freeze, but as long as they remained within the stout walls, his children would stay warm.

At first Lyanna had loved it because, like any sensible child, she loved to play in the mud. Later she'd come to love playing with - and occassionally, poisoning - her plants. Still later, she'd come to love her roses.

 _They're just like my friends,_ she'd told him gravely when she was eleven.  _Whenever I feel sad or angry and I can't tell Brandon I come down here and I- I talk to my roses and I feel better._ She'd blushed as she said it and then glared, daring him to laugh. He hadn't. She'd always been a child of quaint fancies and quainter whims, endearing and appalling by turn, but he'd never laughed at her.  _And they don't laugh at me or give me stupid advice or pretend to listen when they're not so they're better than friends. They're just like a... a part of me._

She'd thrown her hair, knotted into an untidy braid, over one shoulder. The gown she wore had served her well only six months before, but now he could see her ankles under the stained hem. She was still growing and growing fast at that, more like a colt than a girl fit for marriage.

She nodded at him when she saw him and, without preamble, said, "Lotta said they'll die away soon." It took him a second to realize that she was talking about her roses. "The blue ones."

"Aye," he told her. "Winter roses won't bloom for you in spring."

"So spring really is coming?" she asked curiously. "It's not a false start? Like the one we had two years ago and Brandon said spring would come, only it didn't and-"

"No, this time it's for real," he assured her. "See the way the snow flurries? Customary of spring, the way it-"

"I wouldn't know," she reminded him. "This will be my first spring, remember?"

"Your second," he corrected her. "Your second. You were born just as spring began - it lasted three years that one."

 _Springchild,_ he remembered Lyarra saying when Old Nan had put Lyanna into her arms.  _They say spring's children are the loveliest of all, the sweetest and merriest._ That had been fine to hear but then she'd spoiled it, just the way she always did by adding,  _And the shortest-lived too. Spring seldom lasts long._ True, Lyanna had been sickly as a child but at fourteen, a maiden flowered and nearly a woman grown, she was as hardy a girl as any father could have wanted. Perhaps  _too_ hardy. She was very like her brothers.

"Well, you can't expect me to remember a spring that ended before I was three," she objected. "I asked Old Nan what spring was like since she's seen so many of them and she said oh, _beaaaaaaaaaaautiful,_ so very lovely, so sweet." She made a face. "I'll still miss my roses, though, no matter how  _beaaaaaaaaautiful_  spring is."

He laughed. "The smallfolk won't miss the winter, child. Five years makes a long winter and with grain and game so scarce they'll-"

She wasn't paying attention, his spoilt little girl. She was still at the stage where grain and game and the smallfolks' troubles were nothing compared to roses and springs and grand tourneys. No matter. She'd grow out of it quick enough, once she had the care of a husband's lands and keep on her own hands.

"Ned'll be home before dusk sets in," he told her. "He sent us a bird from Castle Cerwyn." He nodded towards her blotched and stained gown. Her hands and face were streaked with sweat and mud. "Best freshen up before he comes - he'll want to see a sister, not a little ragamuffin."

She laughed. "Ned home again after two years," she said dreamily. "He never minded how clean I was."

"He might've changed."

She shook her head. "Not  _my_  Ned," she said decisively. Then she shot him a sly look. "Though his dear friend, the Lord of Storm's End, might." She giggled when he gave a resigned sigh.

"It was meant to stay a secret," he said. "Who told you about Robert Baratheon and-"

"And my betrothal, which you mean to announce tonight? Brandon, of course."

He might have guessed. Lyanna and Brandon had no secrets from one-another. "A gallant lord, proud and strong," he informed her. "Born to greatness." She was laughing so hard now that tears leaked out of her eyes. That didn't sound quite right. "You find him amusing?"

"No," she said. "No. No. Well... yes." She laughed harder. "No, not him so much as- as the idea. The idea of being betrothed."

"Four and ten is old enough to be betrothed," he said gravely. "More than old enough, I should say." Brandon had been betrothed to Lord Hoster Tully's girl when she was twelve. "I wed your mother when she was three and ten."

"I know that," she said. "But it's still funny." She looked at him thoughtfully. "Storm's End... what's he like?"

He was ready with an answer that he hoped would please her. "Strong, handsome, gallant, courteous, witty-" He'd never seen young Lord Baratheon but he'd heard much of him from Ned's letters. Too much, if truth be told. They were the dearest of friends.

"-And no doubt as enamoured of himself as I am of me," she said, snorting. She sucked her finger thoughtfully, though it was so dirty that he doubted that it tasted any good. "D'you know, when I was eleven, I wanted to marry someone from Highgarden."

"Highgarden?" he asked, surprised. "Are the Tyrells so very comely?"

She shrugged. "I've never seen a Tyrell," she said. "But I'd heard talk of the roses of Highgarden and I was half-mad for keeping flowers in those days and... and well, I wanted to see them," she said shyly. She'd never been further any further south than White Harbour, poor girl, save that one time they'd gone to Riverrun.

_Gods, but she made a ruckus there._

"They're beautiful," he told her. He'd travelled a fair bit in his day but he'd never come across gardens lovelier than those the Tyrells kept. "But I think we have a rose to match all of theirs here. The sweetest and fairest of roses."

She smiled up at him. "Me?" she said lightly.

He tweaked her nose. "What makes you think that?"

"My abominable vanity," she replied. "Whenever someone says the word 'fairest' I start thinking of myself."

"Then you should get along capitally with him," he told her. "With Prince Rhaegar wed to Elia of Dorne, Robert Baratheon is the fairest and finest of matches in all the Seven Kingdoms. Prince Viserys comes after Prince Rhaegar of course, and then the little princess but after them Robert Baratheon stands in line to the Iron Throne."

There was Targaryen blood in the lad - his father's mother had been the youngest of the daughters of Aegon the Unlikely. Her brothers had already taken brides of their own choosing so the fifth Aegon had given Princess Rhaelle's hand to the son of the Laughing Storm.

"The fairest and finest of matches," she repeated, looking amused. "Such a dear old father aren't you, to appeal to my vanity?" She stood up on tiptoe to kiss him. "Thank you," she said. "Is this to be my nameday present? It was last month and I'd prayed for a sword, but I suppose you thought a husband would better serve my turn."

"Lyanna-" he said warningly and she laughed. She laughed too much, if truth be told. Unbidden, Lyarra's words came back to him. That sour wife of his had used them to chide a serving girl, but they would have applied just as well to the daughter she'd never seen growing up.

_Fine teeth are the ruin of fine eyes. A girl who likes to laugh will find it harder to weep, when the time for tears comes. And the time will come, child, the time comes for all of us._


	2. Robert: Winterfell

_Thorns scratched at her face like the cats she used to chase in King's Landing. Sparrows_ _exploded from the branches of an alder. But the trees were thinning now, and suddenly she was out of them._

_Broad level fields stretched before her, all weeds and wild wheat, sodden and trampled. Arya kicked her horse_ _back to a gallop. Run, she thought, run for Riverrun, run for home. Had she lost them? She took one quick look,_ _and there was Harwin six yards back and gaining. No, she thought, no, he can't, not him, it isn't fair._ _Both horses were lathered and flagging by the time he came up beside her, reached over, and grabbed her_ _bridle. Arya was breathing hard herself then. She knew the fight was done._

_"You ride like a northman, milady,"_ _Harwin said when he'd drawn them to a halt. "Your aunt was the same. Lady Lyanna."_

**A Storm of Swords** _  
_

* * *

Tendrils of pale light brushed the white birches and black shadows pooled at their roots. A crescent moon hung in the sky, translucent and fragile. The spice of bruised mint and pine needles filled the air. Hooves padded over the early spring snow. A girl laughed.

"Best give up those dreams of riding at tourneys, sweet brother," she said cheerfully. "Or of wearing live steel like a man."

Her brother's voice was petulant. A boy's unbroken voice, he could not have been older than eleven. "I _am_ a man."

"Not till you prove yourself, you aren't. Why you can't even best your sister in a little ride!"

Their voices carried to the stables, the boy's shrill and sullen, his sister's light and laughing. The young lords who were saddling their mounts for their morning ride heard. Eddard Stark smiled wryly and Robert Baratheon chuckled. "Few men could hope to best a northwoman," he said, in his loud, booming voice. "Centaurs, not women, the lot of them."

Lyanna heard and called back, "They enjoy the chase." She emerged, slender and small-boned, leading a mighty destrier. A warhorse. "They enjoy being caught too but it's a rare pleasure for them," she added, winking at him. She was fourteen years old, young to betrothal but old to coquettry.

Robert whistled, impressed. "A gentle lady's mount, to be sure," he said.

Eddard looked uneasy. "That's Brandon's, isn't it?" His older brother was hot-tempered and fiercely possessive - he rather wondered how Lyanna dared to ride his horse. Of course she'd always been his pet, but all the same...

"You have been away from us too long, Ned," Lyanna said fondly. "Of course it's Brandon's - d'you think Father would let that child-" She jerked her head at Benjen behind her, who led a smaller rouncey, "-or me, the sweet little virgin, ride one?"

"Brandon won't mind?"

Lyanna shook her head, a sly smile on her face. "He encourages me in my reckless and wayward ways," she said solemnly. "And he's supposed to be teaching that child to ride but he's too lazy, so I do it for him. And I do it better than he ever could." She patted the fine red beast's muzzle affectionately. "Chastity loves me, don't you, sweetling?" Chastity whickered in acknowledgment and nipped at Lyanna's fingers. But that might have been because Lyanna, who was almost always on horseback, carried a small mountain of sugar lumps on her person at all times.

_They probably think she's their god. Or a patron saint at the very least._

"Chastity?" Ned asked, bewildered.

Lyanna looked at Benjen and Benjen looked at Lyanna. They chuckled together, rascals hand in glove. "Lady Barbrey thought the name might suit," Benjen said, grinning with an insider's smile.

"It was a gift for Brandon from her father," Lyanna said very sweetly. "Lord Ryswell keeps such fine stables, he wanted Brandon to have something to remember them by after he left the Dustins." Brandon had been fostered at Barrowton with Lord Dustin just as Ned had been at the Eyrie with Lord Arryn.

"Lady Barbrey wanted Brandon to have something to remember _her_ by too-" Benjy began but Lyanna shushed him.

"What?" Ned asked curiously.

"Not fit for your maiden ears," Lyanna said primly. "Not fit at all."

Robert, who could not bear to be left out for too long finally had time to put in a word edgewise. "Only riding lessons?" he wanted to know. "On a warhorse?" He looked sceptical.

"I do teach him to ride at the quintain when father's back is turned," she admitted sheepishly. "A bit of tilting, bit of jousting. Riding in the rings and so forth." She looked defensive when he chuckled. " _What_?"

"Are you sure that you won't grace the lists at Harrenhal, my lady?" Robert asked, amused. It was clear that he found the notion enchanting. "Shining armour to bring out the shimmer of your eyes." Ned winced. Robert was a good boy but he fancied himself a poet - which he was adamantly not. Mya's mother swore that he was the comeliest of men - before he opened his mouth.

"Perhaps I might," Lyanna replied, leading Chastity away. "I would be sore tempted to crown your lordship Queen of Love and Beauty. The crown of winter roses would bring out the blue of your eyes." Pleased with herself for having put in the last word, she sauntered away, swaying her hips in a way that reminded Ned once again that he had been away from home for far too long. Benjy trailed behind her, calling for a rematch.

"Up early, aren't they?" Robert asked thoughtfully, after they'd left. The sun had barely risen.

"That's Lyanna," Ned said. "Up very, very early." _Too early,_ he thought. Whenever she thought anyone was sleeping in too late, she'd throw a bucket of ice-cold water over them. Or set their clothes on fire, depending on the weather. _  
_

"And down?" Robert asked, looking hopeful.

"Very, very early too," he said and laughed when Robert's face fell. "Not your idea of a wife, is that?"

"I'll manage," Robert said cheerfully. "A man can hardly go back on his word."

Ned looked at him and he quickly added, "Not that I'd want to, man. Not at all - quite the contrary, as a matter of fact." Ned nodded, satisfied.

Robert seemed to have taken to Lyanna at the feast last night, though Robert took to every pretty girl he set his eyes on. She had looked well in her blue silks with her hair, dark and glossy as a racehorse's mane, hanging loose about her shoulders. She had hardly looked like the hoyden he remembered, from two years before - that is, before she opened her mouth. Lyanna's own opinion about Robert had been harder to gauge, though he hoped for his sister's sake that she had liked him well enough too. Most girls did.

Robert looked thoughtful. "She rides well, your sister. Such a little girl handling such a big horse."

Eddard remembered the rides and hunts and races of his childhood. Lyanna's banshee-like laughter as she pushed her mount forwards as hard as she could, Brandon bellowing like a bull, tiny Benjen who'd always be left behind squealing like a kitten... a cacophany that had always made him wince. He'd always been the quiet one, the one who was content to let them whip by. He had always come last in their impromptu races - winning had never much appealed to him but it was everything that Lyanna lived for.

"Some ride like the wind," he said, remembering something his father had once wryly said. "Lyanna _is_ the wind. She would outride Brandon and me when we were children and she was such a little mite then. Brandon says she still does, but then he dotes upon her."

"Spirited," Robert said, with a smirk of satisfaction. "I like that."

The wolf blood, his father called it. The wildness. Whatever it was, it made Ned uneasy. "You'll soon find you have more spirit on your hands than you'd care for," he told his friend dryly. "Lyanna was born half-wolf and growing up motherless in the North has hardly tamed her into a gentle southron maid." _Nor into one of your whores._

"Hang the gentle southron maids," Robert said brightly. In one swift movement mounted his own horse. The bracing chill seemed to have put him in the mood for adventures. He looked so blithe that Ned smiled fondly up at him, more like a doting father than a friend. Lord Jon used to call him the spirit of temperance, a voice for reason. That was all well and good but life would have been dull indeed if he had not had Robert to rescue from his ill-considered adventures.

"Come now, Ned. I'll race you to that hill and after I'm done gloating over you we'll call down your gentle sister and see if I'm fast enough to catch her." The prospect seemed to delight him. His blue eyes sparkled and the early sunshine gilded his black curls. Handsome, very handsome. The Baratheons were known for their looks.

"Agreed," Eddard said, urging Darkmoon forwards. He thought with satisfaction that Lyanna, by all rights, should find Robert pleasing. Father is wise, he thought, as the cold nipped at his face and Robert's careless laughter rippled through the air. It might be a marriage of political expediency as Lord Jon says, but they will be good for eachother. They will love one another and tame one another. They will be happy together.

* * *

Lyanna's dark lashes veiled her grey eyes. Under their lord father's stern gaze she was, for all intents and purposes, a demure young maid. Preceding at the head of the table, in the place of the lady of the castle she spoke low and let her sweet smiles wash over one and all. She was gracious. She was charming. She was a flower of sweetness.

She was smug.

"More vension, Lord Robert?" she asked solictiously. "It is well-seasoned with the spices of Dorne and most tender."

Lord Rickard beamed upon his daughter. Lord Robert glowered upon his betrothed.

"Gods, woman, don't _mock_ me," he hissed. Brandon hid his smile and pretended to be listening to Eddard - he had heard of the outcome of Lyanna and Robert's race.

Lyanna lifted her bright face to Robert. "Mock, sweet lord?" she asked. "If I have erred, I crave your sweet forgiveness." Then louder, for her father's benefit, she added, "We have sweeter mockingbird's tongues if you do not favour the sweet venison. They will sweeten your tongue."

Robert felt oversweetened. "Very well, my lady, gloat over this victory. I will have the next one." He smiled, envisioning their bridal night. It would not be for two or three years - on her last nameday, which had been some weeks before, she had turned four and ten. Still young for marriage. But she'd be a lively one, to be sure. Put up a little fight. Good. He liked that. Just thinking about it excited him.

Lyanna read his expression correctly and coloured, looking down. Brandon read his expression correctly and looked up, scowling darkly. Rickard read his expression correctly and smiled, delighted that his daughter and her betrothed were getting on so well.

Ned and Benjen remained clueless, as usual.

"Will it be a grand tourney?" Benjen asked Robert. They were talking about Harrenhal of course. From north to south, from Dorne to the Wall, _everyone_ was talking about Harrenhal, of Lord Whent's great tourney which would put to shame all tourneys that had been, all tourneys that were to come. It bored Eddard to tears but Lyanna and Benjen, cut off from fresh gossip in the north, were fascinated.

"Most tourneys are," Robert said, tearing his glance away from Lyanna. He smiled, for he liked curious little boys who looked up to him and talk of tourneys. "Ever been to one?"

"Small affairs," Benjy admitted, looking embarrassed. "The Manderlys put up one at White Harbour last year - Ser Domeric Bolton won and he crowned Lya his Queen of Beauty."

"I still have the crown," Lyanna put in brightly.

"Nothing so grand as the one the Whents will hold at Harrenhal," Benjen continued, ignoring his preening sister.

" _Everyone_ will be there, won't they?" Lyanna asked eagerly, leaning forwards. "Prince Rhaegar to be sure, and they say the King might come, though he's not set foot out of the Red Keep for years-"

 _And Princess Elia and the sweetest maids of her court,_ Robert thought, his mouth watering. But lovely as they were, they were highborn. Their sacred virtue was a shining, impenetrable shield borne up by their brothers. You had to be a prince or a king to have your way with a noble maiden - a pity that his cousin, Prince Rhaegar, was so absorbed in his harps and his melancholy that he never took advantage of the opportunities offered to him. Robert didn't mind much though. The whores who'd set up shop at Harrenhal would be almost as pretty - though not as clean, of course.

"All the great lords of the realm save Lord Tywin Lannister," Lord Rickard told his daughter.

"The King's Hand," Lyanna said, remembering. "Why will he not come?"

Brandon answered for their father. "He quarrelled with King Aerys."

"Some say that it was over his son, Ser Jaime," Robert told them. He loved spreading gossip. "He's been appointed to - nay, _ordered_ \- the Kingsguard and now Lannister has a misshapen imp for an heir." He roared with laughter as he envisioned the lion lord's face when King Scab had given the order. Sour man, he was, though they called his daughter one of the jewels of King's Landing. Robert had never seen the Lady Cersei but if she took after her twin she must be quite the beauty. _But then,_ he thought. _If she takes after Jaime, she'll be as fair as the sun._ And he preferred his women dark, like Ned's pretty sister.

"A child," Lord Rickard said dismissively. "Jaime Lannister - how old is he now?"

"Fifteen," Ned said. "Old enough." Eleven-year-old Benjen looked fascinated.

Lord Rickard shook his head and opined that the Kingsguard was not what it used to be, when green boys were appointed for spite to wear the cloak of honour that had once belonged to men like Ser Ryman Ryswell. But then, his own sire had once had cause to grieve over the same - when King Aegon had raised his Fleabottom knight, Ser Duncan, to the White Swords for love.

Lyanna grinned and cuffed Benjen's head, "Not till you can outride _me_ , Ben." Then she paused and giggled while looking at Robert. "Amends, brother, amends. Not till you're three and ten will we let you trade your tourney sword for live steel for you will _never_ outride me."

Robert pursed his lips and Lyanna pouted. She had such rosy little lips that he smiled and thought about how it would feel like to kiss them, to feel her tongue between his... A serving wench passed by, to fill his cup. She was a buxom young thing, a year or two older than Lyanna. She coloured prettily when she noticed his glance and bent low, her firm breasts brushing against his arm. "More wine, m'lord?" she asked in a breathy whisper.

"To the brim, sweet child," he said, smiling engagingly at her. He'd have to ask his manservant to send her to him later at night. A pity that her hair wasn't darker, more like Lyanna's - but there. She was well enough. Enough to quench his thrist for a night.

Lyanna was scrutinizing him closely. "Alva," she murmured, when the girl had left. Her voice was so low that Robert could hardly hear her but she was looking at him, eyes narrowed.

Almost immediately, he felt guilty. He felt like he used to when he was a little boy and his mother had caught him stealing green apples from the orchard. "Pardon me?" he asked, almost timidly.

She leaned closer. "Her name's Alva," she hissed and sliced a haunch of meat so viciously that it flew off her plate and on to Benjen's.

"Thank you," her little brother said, very politely.

"Riverrun, of course," Lord Stark was telling Brandon. "Of course we shall pass by Riverrun - you must be most anxious to see how your betrothed has grown." They would set for Harrenhal on the following morning, taking the White Knife down to White Harbour and from thence, a ship to Crescent Port and then the Rose Road to Riverrun.

Robert looked at Brandon. "I never knew you were betrothed," he said, in surprise. "Are you betrothed too, Ned?"

"Just me," Brandon laughed. "We're going to let Ned hunt for his bride on his own." Ned blushed as prettily as a maiden. _Ser Blushalot_ , Robert remembered, grinning. Jon Arryn's wards had nicknamed timid Ned Stark that. He had been a rarity among them for he had neither wenched nor whored. The company of highborn maids had never been to his liking either - Robert had often wondered whether he preferred men and had once seriously thought of purchasing a fair-faced boy, such as the sailors from the Free Cities bought at Oldtown, for him.

"He'll never get married at all if you do," Robert objected. "He's not the courting sort - why man, he can't ask a girl to dance if I won't do it for him!"

Lyanna laughed. "That sounds like my Ned," she said fondly. She stretched her hand across the table and squeezed Ned's arm briefly. It was touching to see the easy affection between them.

"Catelyn Tully and I were betrothed when she was twelve and I seven-and-ten," Brandon explained. "It was kept between our families - never officially announced."

"Lord Hoster intends to make it official when we visit," his father said dryly. "He never made his younger girl's betrothal with Jaime Lannister official-"

This was news to Robert, who prided himself on his knowledge of all that mattered in the world. "Jaime Lannister betrothed to a Tully?" he asked.

"Little Lysa," Rickard said, nodding. "Lord Tywin and Lord Hoster had come to terms over it but then after the King..." He shook his head. "Lord Hoster means to make it official between his Catelyn and my Brandon this time."

"He'll make Brandon sign a contract in blood," Lyanna said sagely. "Forbidding him to take up the white or the black or any other colour that entails celibacy. Just in case Brandon feels like turning tail and fleeing when he lays eyes upon his bald, blushing bride."

"She can't still be bald," Ned objected. "She was eight when that happened and now she'll be-"

"Five and ten or thereabouts," Lyanna said. She was grinning, as though she had remembered something very amusing. "She was a year older than me, remember? And her sister a year younger." She turned to Robert, eyes dancing. "D'you know what they say about Tully girls, Lord Robert?"

 _Probably something salacious but you'll just give me the watered-down version, won't you?_ "What do they say?" he asked politely. He doubted he'd hear anything worth hearing from the lips of a gently-raised, highborn maiden like Lyanna Stark. _  
_

"They've _sunset_ in their hair," she said and began to warble, " _I loved a maid as red as autumn with sunset in her hair._ " It was a lovesong, as old as it was sad and sweet.

Eddard and Brandon began to chuckle and Lord Rickard frowned. Robert felt lost. "So... she has red hair? Your betrothed?" he asked Brandon awkwardly. When he was twelve, he'd lain with a girl with hair as red as the chipped copper he'd tossed her. _She swore I'd need but a copper to be a man,_ he thought wryly. And then, when he'd innocently asked her why the hair between her legs was not the same colour as that on her head, she'd laughed and said that it was good for business, but she hadn't had enough dye for her legs. _And I gave her another copper to buy more dye and she kissed me and said I was a sweet little boy.  
_

"Auburn," Lyanna said, smiling impishly. "Both the Tully girls do. _Such_ a lovely color. So bright."

"She set it on fire," Eddard offered, by way of explanation, when Robert continued to look politely puzzled. "Lady Catelyn was eight and my sweet sister seven. A childish tiff. Gods, it was-"

"Such a lovely color!" Lyanna crowed. " _That_ showed her! And it wasn't a childish tiff at all - she was a perfect _beast_ to me. Always telling me how old my clothes were and how dreadful my voice and how ugly and wild I was. So uppity and so very, very proud of her _beautiful_ hair-"

Robert roared with laughter, picturing a miniature version of Lyanna setting fire to a prim little lady. Lyanna looked immensely pleased with herself. "They had to cut it all out," she said. "Huge chunks of it, and she was crying all the time they did - not because she'd gotten hurt but because of all that poor, pretty hair being chopped off. And after it was done she was as bald as an egg and then she didn't have a word to say about how ugly I was."

"Yes," Lord Rickard said firmly, cutting short his daughter. "It will be good for us to pay a visit to Riverrun. Benjen needs the company of boys of his own rank - Lord Hoster's son Edmure is around his age. And I believe my wayward daughter would do well to associate with maidens of her own station as well - it will be a good way to discipline her."

"Eh?" Lyanna looked puzzled. "I burnt her hair seven years ago, father. I don't need to be disciplined now."

Her father gave an exaggerated sigh. "You will forgive my daughter's ignorance, Lord Robert," he said. "I've never had her schooled in southron ways. I never saw the need to but now I must say that it is a pity that I have let her grow so wild and unmaidenly."

"Oh no, of course not," Robert said quickly. He flashed Lyanna a dazzling smile. "I prefer her the way she is."

"That is kind of you," the lord said, with a thin-lipped smile. "But what you find pleasing in your betrothed, you might not find so pleasing in your wife. Lyanna, sweet child."

She plastered a polite smile on her face and said, "Yes, father?"

"We have supped well tonight and you have held your place at the table with marvellous grace," he said, inclining his head towards her.

Lyanna looked uncertain. "Thank you," she said awkwardly.

"Will you not favour us with a song now?"

Lyanna looked horrified. "Oh father-" she began but Brandon interrupted her, grinning wickedly.

"Don't start on that again, Lya! She plays beautifully, doesn't she?" Without preamble turned around and bellowed, with the casualness of a young lord well-loved by his vassals, to the lower tables, "What say you to a song from your sweet lady?"

"A song, Lady Lyanna!" a woman called and others joined her. They were in a merry mood tonight for Lord Rickard had spared no expense for the feasts for his daughter's betrothed. Rich Arbor golds and strong Dornish reds flowed above the salt, below there was plenty of good ale for everyone.

"Won't you sing for your lord, lady?"

"How sweet are maiden blushes-"

In a most unmaidenly voice she yelled back, "My blushes aren't as sweet as yours, Harwin, when Irma has your breeches down!" She might have said more but now her father was openly glowering at her.

There was laughter and Lyanna had no choice but to rise and sweep down to the great hearth, cheeks flaming. Ned rather suspected that for all her mock embarrassment she was rather pleased at the chance to show off her skills. There was vanity streaked with her wilfulness.

A little maid had already brought the high harp for her and a stool. She sat down and slowly the hall began to quieten, till it was at last so still and silent that it sounded more like a crypt for the dead than a hall for the living. Clearly the lady was much loved in her castle. Tentatively, she began to strum the instrument and Robert leaned back and looked at her. Leaves of beaten silver glimmered like stars in her dark hair. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks were rosy, she had all the charm and freshness of an untouched young girl. He might not have netted a songbird or a clever wife but a beauty was just as well.

 _Even better,_ he thought. _For there are no song, nor words either, needed in a bedchamber.  
_

 _The moon must be an angel, her halo surely heaven sent._ Clear and sweet the haunting melody filled the hall, the golden notes ringing loud and true. Already she was lost to them in some pretty dream, her face was pensive, her eyes far away.

Brandon leaned closer to Robert. "She loves the saddest songs," he explained. "She's romantic that way." _Watching from above should the bells forget to ring, and we but lonely travelers following a ray of light all become the same when we begin to sing.  
_

"All women are," Robert said. "A sad tale, sweetly told, will win most of them. That's how minstrels have their way with highborn maids." _Round and round we all go, where we stop nobody knows._

Robert would have preferred a merrier tune, a jolly bottle song to yowl in a tavern with a wench on his lap to sing it with him. This song was too sad, the singer too beautiful. For some strange reason, it reminded him of storm-driven waves lashing the shore, of two frightened children peering down from the parapets and the proud two-masted galley that had fallen on that day, seven years before, the day he would never forget.

_She has too sad a voice for one who knows nothing about sadness._

Grimly, he turned his face away. Brandon looked at him inquiringly so he said, "She has a beautiful voice." It was true too. He would never have believed that Ned's wild sister could be so good at something so womanly as singing and playing the harp. _If it's sad songs she likes, she'll fall in love with Prince Rhaegar, to be sure,_ he thought wryly. _All the women are mad about him but he has never broken faith with the Dornish Princess._

"She is beautiful in all ways," Brandon answered, smiling proudly. Ah, the protective older brother - that was Brandon. Not Ned. Ned was the loving, petting older brother who let his sister wind him around her little finger.

 _Heaven meets on the earth, for the sake of the song._ "I hope you will love and cherish her as she deserves," Brandon continued. There was a steely glint in his eyes. _Could you ever be just for the sake of being?_

"To be sure," Robert said quickly and made a mental note _not_ to ask after Alva or any of the shapely wenches within a mile of Winterfell. Brothers like Brandon were always hard to deal with. Of course, there _was_ a simple way to deal with them - but if the brother in question was his future good-brother he'd be better off not dealing with him at all.

_Could a melody ever be wrong, could you ever sing just for the sake of singing?_

The song had ended and Brandon was the first to rise and stride towards her, the first to clap. "Well done, little sister!" he called out to her. "Well done!" The hall joined him, fierce pride in their lady shining on all their faces. Brandon caught his sister round the waist and twirled her around on the floor. She was giggling and now she punched him playfully, as he led her back to the table.

 _Brothers and sisters._ Robert thought wistfully that he would have rather liked a sister of his own, to tease and pet and scold by turns. He almost felt jealous of the way Brandon held Lyanna but then he quickly reminded himself that it was unseemly to be jealous of a brother-in-law. They were Starks, not Targaryens. Lyanna might be Brandon's sister but she would be _his_ wife. He smiled, as he thought of that.

His wife.

His.

He liked the sound of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song is 'Sake of Song' by Blackmore's Night - it's very beautiful. I'm trying to keep this as close to canon as possible, so here's a list of character ages which is (more or less) accurate, I think:
> 
> Rhaegar: 22
> 
> Elia: 21
> 
> Oberyn, Brandon: 20
> 
> Robert, Eddard: 17
> 
> Stannis: 16
> 
> Ashara, Cersei, Jaime, Catelyn, Petyr: 15
> 
> Lyanna: 14
> 
> Lysa: 13
> 
> Benjen: 11
> 
> Edmure: 10
> 
> Rhaenys: 1
> 
> I know technically Petyr is supposed to be younger than Lysa but that always seemed just wrong to me, he seems more like Catelyn's age.


End file.
